Though The Voyage, As It Is Now Published, Is In All
Respects The Best, And The Most Curious Of All
The circumnavigators.
This was, very probably, owing to the ill-usage he met with from the
Dutch East India Company;
Which put Captain Schovten, and the
relations of Le Maire, upon giving the world the best information
they could of what had been in that voyage performed. Yet the fate
of Le Maire had a much greater effect in discouraging, than the fame
of his discoveries had in exciting, a spirit of emulation; so that
we may safely say, the severity of the East India Company in Holland
extinguished that generous desire of exploring unknown lands, which
might otherwise have raised the reputation and extended the commerce
of the republic much beyond what they have hitherto reached. This
is so true that for upwards of one hundred years we hear of no Dutch
voyage in pursuit of Le Maire's discoveries; and we see, when
Commodore Roggewein, in our own time, revived that noble design, it
was again cramped by the same power that stifled it before; and
though the States did justice to the West India Company, and to the
parties injured, yet the hardships they suffered, and the plain
proof they gave of the difficulties that must be met with in the
prosecution of such a design, seem to have done the business of the
East India Company, and damped the spirit of discovery, for perhaps
another century, in Holland.
It is very observable that all the mighty discoveries that have been
made arose from these great men, who joined reasoning with practice,
and were men of genius and learning, as well as seamen. To Columbus
we owe the finding America; to Magellan the passing by the straits
which bear his name, by a new route to the East Indies; to Le Maire
a more commodious passage round Cape Horn, and without running up to
California; Sir Francis Drake, too, hinted the advantages that might
arise by examining the north-west side of America; and Candish had
some notions of discovering a passage between China and Japan. As
to the history we have of Roggewein's voyage, it affords such lights
as nothing but our own negligence can render useless. But in the
other voyages, whatever discoveries we meet with are purely
accidental, except it be Dampier's voyage to the coasts of New
Holland and New Guinea, which was expressly made for discoveries;
and in which, if an abler man had been employed in conjunction with
Dampier, we cannot doubt that the interior and exterior of those
countries would have been much better known than they are at
present; because such a person would rather have chosen to have
refreshed in the island of New Britain, or some other country not
visited before, than at that of Timer, already settled both by the
Portuguese and the Dutch.
In all attempts, therefore, of this sort, those men are fittest to
be employed who, with competent abilities as seamen, have likewise
general capacities, are at least tolerably acquainted with other
sciences, and have settled judgments and solid understandings.
These are the men from whom we are to expect the finishing that
great work which former circumnavigators have begun; I mean the
discovering every part and parcel of the globe, and the carrying to
its utmost perfection the admirable and useful science of
navigation.
It is, however, a piece of justice due to the memory of these great
men, to acknowledge that we are equally encouraged by their examples
and guided by their discoveries. We owe to them the being freed,
not only from the errors, but from the doubts and difficulties with
which former ages were oppressed; to them we stand indebted for the
discovery of the best part of the world, which was entirely unknown
to the ancients, particularly some part of the eastern, most of the
southern, and all the western hemisphere; from them we have learned
that the earth is surrounded by the ocean, and that all the
countries under the torrid zone are inhabited, and that, quite
contrary to the notions that were formerly entertained, they are
very far from being the most sultry climate in the world, those
within a few degrees of the tropics, though habitable, being much
more hot, for reasons which have been elsewhere explained. By their
voyages, and especially by the observations of Columbus, we have
been taught the general motion of the sea, the reason of it, and the
cause and difference of currents in particular places, to which we
may add the doctrine of tides, which were very imperfectly known,
even by the greatest men in former times, whose accounts have been
found equally repugnant to reason and experience.
By their observations we have acquired a great knowledge as to the
nature and variation of winds, particularly the monsoons, or trade
winds, and other periodical winds, of which the ancients had not the
least conception; and by these helps we not only have it in our
power to proceed much farther in our discoveries, but we are
likewise delivered from a multitude of groundless apprehensions,
that frightened them from prosecuting discoveries. We give no
credit now to the fables that not only amused antiquity, but even
obtained credit within a few generations. The authority of Pliny
will not persuade us that there are any nations without heads, whose
eyes and mouths are in their breasts, or that the Arimaspi have only
one eye, fixed in their forehead, and that they are perpetually at
war with the Griffins, who guard hidden treasures; or that there are
nations that have long hairy tales, and grin like monkeys. No
traveller can make us believe that, under the torrid zone, there are
a nation every man of which has one large flat foot, with which,
lying upon his back, he covers himself from the sun. In this
respect we have the same advantage over the ancients that men have
over children; and we cannot reflect without amazement on men's
having so much knowledge and learning in other respects, with such
childish understandings in these.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 24 of 50
Words from 24004 to 25032
of 50938
